


J’zargo’s Big Blowup

by Pennfana



Series: The Legend of Melvin [2]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Gen, Humor, Humour, I guess I should spell it the American way too, SO, this is what happens when I start talking about games with my friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 17:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15868347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pennfana/pseuds/Pennfana
Summary: Somebody slipped some moon sugar into the wrong cup of coffee...





	J’zargo’s Big Blowup

**Author's Note:**

> Through sheer force of habit, I offer this anti-litigation charm: Melvin Voiturenez is my own creation, and I must bear responsibility for the plot. However, most of the intellectual property in this fic belongs to Bethesda Softworks.

When J’zargo woke up, his head was pounding like half the College of Barfs were using it as a drum. Or was it Bards? J’zargo could never really remember. Human languages were so odd. He shifted in his bed, and he heard a familiar voice saying, “Oh, good, you’re awake.”

From the tone of Melvin’s voice, J’zargo suspected that it was not, in fact, a good thing. He groaned.

“Greetings, Archmage. Is this one’s head still head-shaped?”

Melvin kept her gaze as neutral as possible. “Rather remarkably, yes. And I must say that I’m impressed,” she said flatly. “You blew up the alchemy lab, J’zargo. _Again_.”

“This one did _what?_ ” J’zargo sat straight up in bed and immediately wished he hadn’t. The room spun around him and he lay down again before he got sick.

“You heard what I said,” Melvin said sharply. “What do you remember?”

“J’zargo remembers drinking a surprisingly strong cup of coffee. It was very sweet. On reflection, this one thinks that it may have been sweetened with moon sugar.”

“Yes, well, that might help to explain what happened in the alchemy lab,” Melvin sighed. “J’zargo, are you in the habit of taking your coffee with cream?”

J’zargo looked at her. “No, Archmage. This one cannot drink cream. It is a taste that is most pleasing to the tongue, but it also has an unwanted effect on this one’s digestion.” 

“It makes you fart,” she surmised. 

“Indeed,” said J’zargo. “For this reason, this one avoids cream whenever it is possible to do so.” He hesitated. “Archmage, this one must ask, although not desiring to be rude...what happened?” 

Melvin stared. “You mean that you really don’t know?” 

“Cross this one’s heart,” J’zargo declared.

“Well, all right, then,” Melvin replied, sounding slightly skeptical. “As far as I’ve been able to determine, some joker—who, by the way, is about to be _extremely_ unlucky once his or her identity is discovered—decided to spike your morning coffee with moon sugar and heavy cream. You weren’t entirely awake at the time, and in any case you had your head full of research and scheming, as usual. Onmund and Brelyna say, and Tolfdir agrees, that you seemed to be becoming more agitated as you consumed more of the coffee. Does any of this sound familiar yet?”

“No, Archmage.”

“Hmm. So, after you drank your coffee, you ran right into the Hall of Countenance and made a beeline for the alchemy lab. You threw a number of reagents into the mortar and started mashing them up with the pestle, and then you mixed them up with something that Faralda swears looked like apple juice. Then you...erm...passed gas.”

“This one did what?”

“You farted, J’zargo,” she said. 

“That must have been bad.”

“Well, Colette says that it stank to high heaven, but it didn’t actually seem to directly affect your experiment, which also smelled pretty awful, to be honest. But you evidently didn’t expect such an abrupt expulsion of gas, so your tail puffed out and you jumped up and looked behind yourself. Doing that, you knocked over the alembic and your tail caught fire. You then tried to put it out with frost salts, but you picked up void salts and threw them on your tail instead. And you know what happens when void salts catch fire.” 

“If J’zargo didn’t know before, he could easily guess,” J’zargo groaned. “No wonder this one’s tail feels as though a herd of mammoths had trampled over it.”

“As you say. In any case, the explosion of the void salts, in combination with your spilled experiment, the residual rectal gas, and the hair on your tail, formed a knockout gas that was potent enough to send the entire Hall of Countenance to sleep for a week. This, of course, included Colette, who woke up a couple of hours ago. Which means that I was recalled to the College during one of the few genuinely peaceful weeks I’ve had since I arrived in this giant ice cube of a country that we call home. Fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt, and I was able to save your tail, so you won’t have to worry about issues with balance once you’ve recovered enough to leave your bed. But J’zargo?”

“Yes, Archmage?”

“I would definitely recommend that you be more careful with your coffee, and your experiments, in the future. You’re already well on your way to developing a reputation as an expert in the field of incendiary magic and demolitions. As irritating as your overconfidence can be, you are a good friend and a valued member of the College. I would hate to have anything happen to you for reasons both personal and professional. Are we clear on that?” 

“Yes, Archhmage, perfectly clear,” J’zargo murmured, somewhat subdued.

**Author's Note:**

> As noted in the tags, this is what happens when I talk about games with friends who also play them. My friend suggested that it would be funny to see what might happen if a khajiit’s coffee were to be spiked with moon sugar and thickened with cream. I pointed out that actual cats tend to be lactose intolerant once they grow out of kittenhood, and...well, it only remained to be seen whether I could make the story funnier with Razum-dar from Elder Scrolls Online or J’zargo from Skyrim. Obviously, I chose the latter. Raz has many characteristics that lend themselves well to comedy, of course, but J’zargo has more consistent access to an alchemy table.
> 
> Since this is the second fic I’ve posted featuring Melvin Voiturenez, I might as well admit that this is turning into a series. There’s a much longer work about her lurking on my hard drive, though other snippets will probably make their way to the archive long before the main story does.
> 
> Oh, and “College of Barfs” was an honest typo that I thought was funny enough to keep.


End file.
